Just Exploring

Little by little we make small things big. Step by step we move forward. Following the right path, the Eightfold path, makes me calm, steady and happy. Did you find yours? Everybody has one, just some must look deeper or look for it longer. Just explore and it will unfold naturally.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Cycling to Asia, part 0

Most of you know, what's in front of me, or better to say in front of us. Just in case you still don't know what I was talking about the last year, or so, here is a briefing: Me and my good friend from uni Dusan decided to cycle from Slovakia to India, continuing to Burma and Thailand. There we will try to load the bikes on a aeroplane and fly back home. Old dream is coming to materialize. Some serious preparation is in progress now. We have just visited the Vienna's embassies, i.e. Iran and Pakistan. Simply to say the most crucial ones, since Turkey is not a problem, India should be fine and Burma is not within our reach now. We couldn't have choose a better time! Or the Iranian elections could have triggered the fuss in Teheran few months ago, so today it would be all over. We are just hoping that in the time of our arrival to Iran everything is gonna be fine. Surprisingly everything went smoothly on both embassies. If you need any advise contact me. There is quite a lot of rubbish written on internet. We simply went to Iran, where we applied for the visa. The ambassador was very distinguished and polite. He took our application and told us to call in 3 weeks. Then we went to Pakistan, this took a bit longer, but finally we left our passports there. The visas should be granted to us in two weeks, so we've got enough time for the Iran. The only problem we have is that all the visas need to be validate until 3 months i.e. we have to entry the particular country within this time. Well, since our journey will take circa 4 months till we reach India the Pakistan is a bit of a problem, but we hope we can make it. India is definitely out of the question now: we have to apply for the visas on the road. Most probably in Istanbul. Burma and Thailand will cheer up our days in Delhi. Now waiting, we can focus on other things. In my case this is my bicycle. I have brought a mountain bike from Norway. Its a good peace that was given to me by my friend Ivan, but since it was found in a river I have to fix it "a bit". I started with dismantling it. Soon I will buy all necessary parts that have to be changed. This is all movable parts as chain, tubes, tyres, wires and so on. Plus I will change the shifting gear and some other things. Here I will just reuse the parts I have found on the streets of Oslo -all in good shape and high quality, but not brand new. So the bike is going to be reborn. But still within a budged of almost everybody. Nothing fancy, but long lasting of course. At least I hope! I'd rather have some money aside for the broken parts during the trip. Next direction of my interest is to pack. This is not as easy as I usually remember it from my previous adventures. Firstly I have never been on a bike trip longer than two days!!! Secondly we are going trough a wide range of countries in a combination with different seasons, altitudes, temperatures and environments. Not mentioning the lack of bicycle supplies en route. This means we need to take almost everything with us. Well since we want to enjoy the journey as well we have to find a way how take everything necessary, but manageable to carry with us on the bikes. Its not a big deal, but I don't want to underestimate it so I started to "pack" three weeks before departure -quite unusual for me, but who cares. The rest of my time I spent either on-line checking for cycling routes, parts and other stuff or with my friends that I haven't seen for ages and now I will leave them again.